Not So Loony
by PersonWhoWritesStuff
Summary: Who would have thought such a loony person could be so . . . helpful? Luna helps Ron get with Hermione. Set in the sixth book, before he gets poisoned, but after he's started dating Lavender.


so, i wrote this story over a year ago, so the writing style is probably different from more recent stories.

Also, i want to make it clear that Ron and Luna will NOT end up together in this one.

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Ron Weasely headed down to his friend, Hagrid's, hut. This time, he was alone, which was very unusual for him. His best friend, Harry Potter, was currently in detention with the terrible professor Snape, and his other friend, Hermione Granger, was currently not his friend at all. Hagrid had sent him an invitation for tea, and Ron figured he might as well go, even if Harry Couldn't, plus he had not spoken to Hagrid in while, and felt bad for ignoring him when he was upset about his friend, Aragog, being very ill, even if Aragog was a giant unpleasant spider, that had once tried to feed Ron to his spider family.

When he knocked on the door, a smiling Hagrid answered it and lead him through the small hut to the dining table, which, Luna Lovegood was sitting at, an oversized cup of tea in front of her.

" Oh. Hello, Luna," He said, indifferent to her presence.

"Hello, Ron," She said vaguely, smiling cheerfully, like a lunatic.

Ron slid into the seat next to her, as Hagrid poured another oversized cup of tea for Ron.

"I was jus' showin' Luna, here, a bit more o' the skrewts," Hagrid explained happily, "she's taken quite a likin' to 'em, she has."

"Well you're one in a million," Ron said quietly, with a small smile to himself.

"I believe they are . . . misunderstood," She explained, earnestly.

Ron raised his eyebrows at her, "Right," he said, "I'm sure that's it."

Luna didn't argue with him. It was probably because she didn't really get that he was using sarcasm.

Hagrid smiled at the two of them, but turned to the door, "I'll be back, I need to feed the skrewts an' get them into separate cages. Don't you two be fightin' when I get back," he chuckled to himself.

Ron felt a bit awkward being left alone in the hut with Luna, but it was only a second after Hagrid left that she once again asked a question that a normal person would not.

"Why are you dating Lavender?"

"Uh . . ." Ron answered lamely, startled by this question, "I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"It seems very silly to me, dating someone like that." She said, but not in a gossipy tone.

"Like what?" Ron wasn't even sure if she meant him or Lavender.

"I mean, I can tell, and I'm sure others can too, that you don't even like her that much."

"I do like Lavender." He said automatically.

"Do you _like_ her?" Luna asked, "Or do you like _snogging _her?"

Ron opened his mouth to answer, but closed it, realizing he was a little unsure of the answer, himself.

"I've been trying to figure it out for the longest time: if you wanted to date someone, why would you date someone you don't really like, rather than dating Hermione?" She looked at Ron for a moment, "I'd be surprised if she rejected you."

"She didn't reject me!" Ron said defensively, right away, "I mean, whoever said I wanted to date Hermione?"

"Well," Luna answered, "basically you, you have it written all over your face."

Ron was speechless for a moment, and then finally got himself to say, "I don't know what you're talking about." He knew instantly that she would not buy it, by the look on her face.

"Don't be defensive," she said in a comforting tone, "it's equally obvious that Hermione likes you, as much as you like her," as Luna was saying this, Ron's face was getting a deeper shade of red every moment, "If you were to look into her eyes when she sees you with Lavender, behind all of the hate, you'd be able to see the envy, the sad, painful, envy."

Ron did not know what to say at this point. He didn't deny what she said about Hermione, because he honestly had no way of knowing whether it was true or not, when he was with Lavender, they were always snogging, making him unable to look into anyone's eyes.

"If I were you, I would've asked her out long ago," Luna continued, "Why didn't you?"

"Erm . . ."

"As I remember it, you guys were getting along pretty well, but you suddenly stopped talking to each other. Right before the last quidditch match, am I correct?"

"Uh, yeah, well, I suppose . . ." Ron said, uncomfortably, his ears going and even darker shade of red, thinking about the whole reason he got mad at her in the first place. Now that he thought about it, and now that it was much too late to do anything about it, he realized that it was a very stupid reason, and he treated Hermione very unfairly. Even the other part of the reason he got so mad wasn't her fault, she had nothing to do with the "experience" he had in snogging.

"What happened?" Luna asked, interrupting his thoughts.

"Well . . . it was pretty stupid . . . I don't think I want to talk about it . . ." Ron's face was a dark maroon at this point.

"Hey," Luna said calmly, and caring, as she gently put a hand on his shoulder, "anything you say in here, will stay in here."

For the first time in however long he'd known Luna, she sounded like a completely normal person to Ron. He suddenly felt safe, and truly did believe her. He felt closer to her, not romantically, but as friends.

"Well, fine, I'll tell you the whole story, but . . . only if you promise this is between you and me **only,**" He waited for her to nod her head in agreement before going on, "Okay, well," he sighed, "I have thought, more than once, about being more than friends with Hermione . . ." even as he said it, he it was obvious he was lying; he had thought about Hermione as more than friends many times, ". . . anyway, well, one day me and Harry caught Ginny and Dean, snogging, in the hallway. I mean, of course I'm going to yell at them, she's my sister! Excuse me, if I don't want to watch her snogging some guy, in public! But, Ginny didn't really agree with me there . . . she yelled back at me . . . said the real reason I was mad was because I didn't have 'experience,' or whatever, because she's snogged Dean, Harry's snogged Cho Chang . . . and Hermione . . . snogged Krum . . ." Ron paused, the image of them together poisoning his mind.

"I see where this is going . . ." Luna said, understandingly, "You were jealous, not only of your friends having snogged other people, but more specifically of Krum having snogged Hermione."

Ron pressed his lips together and looked away from her. It was almost scary how easily she picked up on this. Or perhaps Ron was just being obvious.

"What I don't understand, though, is why did you get mad at Hermione for this? I mean, the students from Durmstrang came here two years ago, so I am assuming that was when Hermione kissed Krum. No one should get mad at someone for such a small offense, which happened years ago."

Ron kept his mouth shut and gave a guilty look to the teacup in front of him.

Luna shook her head disappointedly, "So . . . what? You're dating Lavender to make her jealous? Revenge for her kissing Krum? An easy way to get 'experience?'"

"I don't even know anymore," Ron admitted, "I guess I just wanted to snog someone at the time, and she was just the only person who wanted to snog me back."

"Well if it wasn't for revenge, then why not just kiss Hermione? Then you'd be snogging, and you'd be doing it with someone you actually like."

"Well by that point, I had already been so rude to her, and even worse it was after she had asked me to Slughorn's party."

"What you should have done was go to the party with her, and then told her you wanted to be more than friends there. It would've been so romantic . . ."

"Well it's a bit late for that now, isn't it?" Ron said sourly. Then an inkling of an idea sprouted in his head, and his tone changed, "Say, Luna, you seem to know this stuff . . . maybe you could help me . . ?"

"Like a love coach?" She asked.

Ron grimaced, "No . . . just tell me how I could be shot of Lavender, and . . ."

"Get started with Hermione?"

"Yeah . . ." Ron muttered; he was still getting used to the fact he had admitted his feelings out loud to someone.

"I'll help you, on one condition," Luna answered, "you listen to everything I have to say. And you need to be willing to actually take some risks . . . agreed?"

Ron looked uncertain, but realized he would do anything to be with Hermione, "Agreed."

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plese review! but it will probably be a while before i update this one.


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